Usually men and women perform various electoral functions to vote or be voted for into elective positions when the electoral umpires roll out dates and put in place laws that guide the conduct of such acts.
While the umpires and government functionaries work hard to educate the citizens on the need for a violence free process, some individuals bent on seizing power use any means possible to make trouble and ensure they win.
Interestingly, several places in the country were hotbeds and flash points of the total disruption of the systems put in place for free and fair elections during the period starting from the Presidential and National Assembly Elections and the State Governorship and Assembly elections between February and March this year.
Unfortunately, despite measures taken to guide the actors on the need to eschew violence and tow the part of peace, youths and adults expected to guide them accordingly have been extra busy bent on scuttling the process to enthrone their wards and loyalists or impress their principals who in some cases may not be bothered at how they go about it.
The youths who are being used to perpetrate electoral violence by the so-called leaders have never bothered to sit back and ponder what becomes of them after the elections, what roles are being played by the children of the leaders who use them to disrupt the process for their selfish gains. The major actors have never bothered to register their children, wards and relatives to even vote or join in the acts where human lives are wasted.
During such periods as the primaries, electioneering campaigns, voting and collation processes, their families are moved out of circulation, clothed in expensive robes and flown out of the creeks, jungles, villages to the cities and foreign lands where they have their mansions.
Worried by the mess created and the lives wasted in Bayelsa State, Governor Seriake Dickson set up a commission of inquiry in to the violence, mayhem and breach of peace during and after the General elections which ended after the forced rerun.
Knowingly, it has not been the best of news coming from the Bayelsa state Judicial Commission under the chairmanship of Justice Inikade Eradiri as several alleged actors invited by the commission shunned constituted authorities empowered to find a lasting solution to the cycle of violence.
The invitation of such prominent figures in the state like former Governor, Chief Timipre Sylva who is the leader of the All Progressives Congress APC, Honourable Israel Sunny Igoli a serving member of the state House of Assembly, the Acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Prof Nelson Brambaifa, the Minister of state for Agriculture Senator Heineken Lokpobiriand Mr. Famous Danumiegha, the candidate of the APC for the Sagbama/Ekeremor Federal Constituency, had legal backings beyond the state.
Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court Abuja had recently granted the Nigerian Police the Orders to arrest and prosecutes Hon Sunny Goli, the lawmaker representing Brass1 Constituency in the state House of Assembly.
More so, the oil industry players are also accused of being major players in the electoral violence even as Justice Abang also granted the prayers of the Nigerian police to arrest and prosecute one Mr. Sam Kodjo, an Oil Surveillance Contractor and others over alleged complicity in the February 23, 2019 attack and abduction of Deputy Commission of Police, Kola Okunola in the Brass area of the state.
The oil contractors’ name kept coming up during the first week of the sitting as prominent people who have appeared before the commission including Chief Blessing Ipigasi Izagara who is also the candidate for the Bayelsa East Senatorial District, former Chairman of Nembe Local Government Area Chief Kurogbofa Walter – Benewari and the Vice Chairman of Nembe Local Government Area MrAiyebainaemi, Walter -Benewari however told the panel that APC thugs attacked people in Bassambiri and Okipri areas.
Even as over 35 witnesses have testified so far, the security agencies are not being portrayed in positive terms as their conduct is being flayed for turning deaf ears and watching lives being wasted by thugs.
Unfortunately though, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Agriculture, has said the Commission of Enquiry set up by the Bayelsa State Government to investigate violence during the 2019 general elections in the state is a ploy to divert attention.
Lokpobiri also described his invitation to appear before the panel as attempt to distract people of the state from the real issue of Governor Seriake Dickson’s alleged mal-administration in the past seven years adding that the said panel was illegal and strange to the extant laws governing elections, including the Electoral Act and the Constitution.
The Bayelsa State Chapter of the APC had distanced itself from the panel and urged its members not to appear before it.
APC Spokesman, Doifie Buokoribo, said that the PDP government in Bayelsa had no moral rights to be a judge in an election it partook in.
Even as several lives were lost and a serving Deputy Commissioner of Police was abducted, he maintained that the panel was unnecessary and that there was no single political violence involving the APC in Bayelsa during the last elections.
Dickson had on February 24 alleged that the APC led by Ex-Gov Timipre Sylva and Lokpobiri had colluded with the military to unleash violence and manipulate the polls and hence the justification for setting up the panel.
Spokesman of the 16 Brigade, Major Jonah Danjuma, promptly denied the allegations and said that troops averted violence by arresting some political thugs during the polls. But how come lives were lost and the INEC ordered a rerun.
- Nnodim, a legal practitioner lives in Abuja.